


(out)grow

by Sojmilk



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (kinda), AU, Angst, M/M, Oneshot, Poetic, Young romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 01:59:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11138943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sojmilk/pseuds/Sojmilk
Summary: Jesse McCree and Hanzo Shimada collide with crashing mouths and fumbling fingers, and they don't stop colliding, letting winter pass them by, spring and summer slipping away. Something is right, and something is wrong.





	(out)grow

Jesse wasn't anyone important. He knew that. He'd grown up too fast, war and death of his loved ones aging him like no child should be aged. Now, at twenty-two, he had grey hairs where there should be brown, lines on his face where there should have been smooth skin. Aches where there should have been an arm. He had nothing to offer. He was redundant, a spanner in the works of an uncaring country. A nobody.

But Hanzo...

Hanzo made him feel like he was someone.

 

He'd first seen Hanzo on a busy night at the diner, out back, smoking a cigarette that was fragrant with something other than nicotine. Jesse had wanted to talk to him, but the noise of a plate shattering inside forced him away.

The second time Jesse saw him, he'd actually entered the diner. Two weeks later, same fragrant smell, but cigarette nowhere to be seen. He'd ordered a black coffee and a burger and sat in the booth closest to the door. It had been a rainy day and there were only a few customers. Jesse'd wiped the bench and watched.

Hanzo had done nothing overly abnormal. He'd eaten his burger, drunk his coffee. Looked out the window.

 _Didn't_ look out the window. He'd been watching the reflection of the diner in the window. Watching Jesse right back.

Blushing, Jesse had fumbled his cloth and sped to the kitchen.

 

Hanzo came back the next day. And the next. He didn't come on Friday, but every other day, he arrived, ordered his burger and a coffee. Sat in his booth and watched Jesse in the window. Sometimes Jesse watched back.

It became routine. Neither of them spoke to each other save for “My usual, please,” and “Coming right up.”

 

Jesse didn't know why he never said anything else to the quiet man. Weeks passed. In his spare time, lying on his small bunk in the apartment he shared with Lena, the cook, his thoughts always found their way to him. Did diner man like cigarillos? Did he drink anything other than coffee, eat anything other than burgers? Where was he on Fridays?

What was his name?

 

One Friday night, during a thunderstorm, Hanzo arrived, soaking from the rain. The diner was almost empty. Unusual for a Friday night – but most people wouldn't brave the weather for mediocre coffee or Lena's burgers – despite their renown.

Hanzo strode up to Jesse. “I would like a milkshake and your number.”

Taken aback, it took Jesse a moment to reply. Not knowing what else to say, he spluttered, “Coming right up,” and tore off a piece of paper to write his number on. Hanzo thanked him. “My name is Hanzo,” he said, and took a seat at the counter. Even dripping wet, the smell of his cigarettes hung around him. It made Jesse a little dizzy to be so close to him, to have the smell of him so near.

“I'm Jesse. 's'a pleasure to meet you,” he said eventually.

 

Hanzo asked if he could walk Jesse home at the end of his shift, and Jesse agreed, cheeks flushed. “I-I s'pose. You're not gonna murder me, are you?”

Hanzo snorted. “I assure you, I had not even considered it.”

Jesse bit his lip. When Hanzo laughed, the neon lights of the diner flashed and shimmered on his dark hair and lit his dark eyes like a light in the night sky.

 

Perhaps he should have been more cautious of this beautiful half-stranger, but he was intrigued, enamoured. They walked home together, the rain having slowed, and, knowing Lena was with her girlfriend tonight, Jesse invited Hanzo inside, regretting it the moment Hanzo agreed. The flat was cramped and small, dishes piled in the sink – his and Lena's high standards of cleanliness in the diner did not extend to their own living space.

Hanzo didn't seem to mind though. He accepted the beer from the fridge that Jesse offered him, laughed at Jesse's jokes, made a few of his own. He didn't ask about Jesse's past and Jesse didn't ask about his.

One beer wasn't enough to make either of them drunk, or even tipsy, but they didn't care. Jesse may have had dark memories and more lines around his eyes than his age commanded, and he suspected Hanzo's dark eyes held secrets too, but they were both still young enough to feel the tug of desire, reckless enough to allow themselves be pulled in by it. Mouths crashed together, hands fumbled with shirts and zippers.

It wasn't Jesse's first time, and it certainly wasn't Hanzo's, but it was something neither of them had felt before. They fit together like clockwork, moved together like trees in the wind. When they finished, Hanzo left, farewelling Jesse with a final kiss, and a promise to see him the next day.

 

He wasn't at the diner the next day, but he was there on Sunday.

Their routine continued, except now Hanzo sat at the counter and chatted to Jesse, and at the end of Jesse's shifts, they left together. Sometimes they went to Hanzo's apartment, cleaner and bigger than Jesse's, but further away. Sometimes they went to a movie, or on midnight walks. Sometimes they would have sex, sometimes they would just sit together and talk.

Jesse sometimes spoke about the things he'd seen. About what happened to his arm. Sometimes he cried. Always, Hanzo would hold him until he was finished. Always, he'd kiss his cheeks and his forehead and his lips. Sometimes he'd tell Jesse he loved him.

Hanzo didn't tell Jesse about what or where he came from, but he spoke of cherry blossoms, of family rifts. One night at Hanzo's apartment, after drinking a bottle of cheap blue tequila together, he slurred something new.

“I couldn't...hurt him,” he said to Jesse, looking at him with imploring eyes. “I couldn't do that. So I came here. And...I found you.”

Jesse bent to press his lips to Hanzo's soft mouth. “Sure am glad you did, Han,” he said. Hanzo's fingers scrabbled at the buttons of Jesse's shirt, who let them be undone, twisting to free his arms from his sleeves. Hanzo spread his hands out over Jesse's wide chest, kissed both shoulders, kissed his collarbone, kissed his mouth, drew back for a moment to say, “I am glad I did too.”

 

They slept together that night, holding each other close, waking in the morning to curse the light that crept in beneath the blinds, antagonizing their headaches and sore eyes. Jesse made them both coffee, and they sat in bed, holding one another. For the first time, Jesse told Hanzo that he loved him.

He said the words slowly, wanting there to be no mistaking his sincerity. Hanzo smiled, and leaned forward to kiss him, coffee taste in both their mouths. They smoked Hanzo's fragrant cigarettes, and stayed in bed until Jesse had to leave to work.

 

*

For the first few months, Jesse felt he was holding bated breath, waiting for the other shoe to fall. For Hanzo to tell him none of it meant anything to him, that the words he'd said held no truth. But that day didn't come, and Jesse learned to let go, to trust in what they had.

 

Winter passed, as did spring. Summer brought beach visits and more frequent nighttime walks, fewer clothes in bed, more time together as Hanzo finished his studies at the community college.

Autumn came around, sweeping brown and orange leaves through the streets. On a walk one day, Hanzo picked two from the grass, freshly-fallen, and tucked them into the pocket of his blue coat. “To remember this day,” he told Jesse. Jesse smiled, and took his boyfriend's hand. Content, but not sure why this was a day to remember.

 

Winter came around again, howling winds and driving rain. Jesse began to wonder if he was doing something wrong. He was happy and content. Hanzo comforted him, made him feel loved, made him feel necessary, beamed when Jesse bestowed even the smallest affection upon him.

It finally dawned on him one blustery day that perhaps Hanzo needed him more than he needed Hanzo. That he _didn't_ need Hanzo anymore. He'd once felt his heart belonged to the other man, but now he knew it was his own, and had been all along.

 

He slept alone that night, in his small bed at his and Lena's apartment. The next day, he told Lena he was sick, and couldn't work. She left him with instructions to warm and eat the soup in the fridge, to stay warm, to drink plenty of water.

 

Instead he dressed and walked to Hanzo's apartment, wondering if he _was_ sick, what with the pounding in his chest and the queasy feeling in his belly. He knocked and waited instead of using the keys under the mat. He hovered in the doorway instead of going inside as he might have, any other day. 

 

For the first few months, Jesse worried that he would be discarded, left behind, _outgrown_. He hadn't thought he'd be the one to leave. He hadn't thought Hanzo would cry, break down, beg him to reconsider. He hadn't thought he was so set in his decision to walk away, door still open, Hanzo hunched over in the opening. The sky was beginning to weep, and Jesse turned around once; he caught a glimpse of rain blowing in through the open doorway, of Hanzo's hair whipping his tear-stained face, his nose and cheeks red.

For a millisecond, Jesse was tempted to run back. To take Hanzo in his arms, say he was sorry.

He tore himself from the sight, and walked away.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to say that Jesse wasn't breaking up with Hanzo for the sake of it, and it wasn't in cruelty. Sometimes we have to let people go, and sometimes it hurts. He acknowledged that Hanzo was more invested in their relationship than he was, and recognised that it was a problem. A healthy relationship is not one where person A gives their all and person B does not.  
> I /do/ ship Mchanzo, and I desperately want a happy ending for them, but I've been having a sad day, and needed to write something sad to get that out. I hope you enjoyed my short story.


End file.
